15'' MBP troubles Need some help

Need some help from the resident geniuses. I have a 15" MBP with the following hardware installed:

Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro4,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 3 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 800 MHz

Recently, when I close the notebook and come back to it later, it will have a blank screen. The fans are running so I know it is working, but I've tried everything. All that seems to work is holding the power button until it shuts down and then restarting it. Any advice would be much appreciated. I've searched through the forum and found a few threads that seem to be similar to mine but nothing helped.

 

What kills me is its just over a year old! I also noticed that when I open it up after it being closed, its really hot! So far I've been really happy with the switch to Macs, but this sucks!

 

Another thing I've noticed is this happens every other time when I close the notebook. I've tested it a couple times now, and every other time the apple logo stays lit and I can tell that the screen is still lit even though the notebook is closed. When I open it back up the notebook is unresponsive. I guess that's why it's so hot when I pick it up after letting it sit so long.